I recently joined a community choir in my local town of Bulimba.

It made me realize how much I enjoy music and singing in particular. When I reflect on my past life, I see that music has been an important part of it.

I was a contemplative monk for 6 years and sang Gregorian Chant daily (usually in Latin) over that period. There is something especially meditative about this type of music.

While I was a part of the seminary choir I had the opportunity to sing for various ceremonies such as Ordinations. We even sang in St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney on one occasion and that was something special.

As a student at school I sang in Eisteddfods as a solo performer and in duets. I was a boy Soprano then but did not appreciate the gift I had - I'd rather play tennis.

Now my voice is very much that of a Baritone, so I can no longer reach the lofty heights of the Soprano.

I have attended a number of singing and toning workshops with Chris James, a former Buddhist monk and global music teacher, who teaches a basic message, "everyone has a beautiful voice". We only have to learn how to find it and to relax into our voice because our body is a natural resonator.

Chris James teaches internationally about the healing power of sound, song and meditation. Through discovering our natural voice, we learn that we can experience and trust our creativity and intuition. This frees us to be able to perceive and express clearly.

Through Chris's workshops I have rediscovered my voice and the desire to sing with others.

My experience with the Morningsong Community Choir in Bulimba has reinforced my positive experience with singing.

Here's something I wrote recently to a friend explaining my experience of the choir,

Our sense of community deepens every week ...The real influence is Jane's strong community spirit and orientation - like her participation in the Cancer Council fundraising.

The choir members themselves are very special people. A number of them hold significant positions in various charities. Most have experienced grief and/or trauma in some form (e.g. cancer). The choir helps each person to become grounded and lost in the beauty of the music we sing and the pleasure of the harmonies we achieve.

In a very real sense the choir is a microcosm of communities as they exist today - and for some small part of the week, our choir community experiences the harmony that policy makers can only dream of.

We have one fellow who is blind and comes to the choir with a minder. His minder has indicated that he has been transformed by the choir from a timid person who was frightened to go anywhere to become the life of the choir. His unadultered pleasure from singing with the choir is something special to experience - it's childlike simplicity helps us to appreciate the gift we have in the form of the choir.

Jane (our singing leader) allows us to move from bass to tenor to soprano as we wish. Most members of the choir have a significant range. What it brings home to us is how emotion influences our voices and how song expresses feelings. For example, there are times when people cannot access their upper or lower register because the memory of grief or trauma
resides there.

The healing power of sound and singing is very evident in our community choir.

We have established a blog to keep members abreast of forthcoming events and have a Squidoo lens dedicated to the choir. On the Squidoo lens, we share what the choir is about, its aims and focus. We have YouTube videos of other choirs that sing the songs we sing. We also have midi's of the various parts (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) for the songs that we sing - contributed by a member of the choir. Our Noticeboard on the Squidoo lens highlights special forthcoming events or activites.

We were delighted when the Squidoo lens for the Morningsong Community Choir won a Purple Star award from Squidoo for its demonstration of how Squidoo can be used to build local community. The award is described by Squidoo in these terms:

This page was handpicked by Squidoo's editors as one of the most remarkable pages on the entire [Squidoo] site. So if you like it, "remark" on it, share it with a friend, and know you're spreading the word about something really exceptional on the web.

I recently wrote an article on how Squidoo can be used for local community development as a result of this experience.

The Morningsong Community Choir primarily sings songs from cultures that have a strong tradition of singing in harmony: Africa, USA, Eastern Europe and the Pacific Islands. We also throw in a few traditional and anonymous songs from Europe/UK, and classical ones from Mozart and friends. We don't do pop/funk/rock/croon/musicals. Morningsong is a non-religious group, although there is always room for a beautiful gospel song in the repertoire.

We are growing as a community as a well as a choir and enjoying immensely our weekly experience of singing (and eating) together. There is something very special about being very grounded for some part of your week. The sense of community is really special as well.